A ceasefire is tenuously in place between the two, but tensions between them are still keeping oil tankers from passing through the Strait of Hormuz to deliver crude from the Persian Gulf to customers worldwide.
The price for a barrel of Brent crude to be delivered in June yo-yoed for much of the day before settling at $105.33, up 0.2%. The price for a barrel of Brent oil delivered in July, which is where more of the trading is happening in the market, fell 0.2% to $99.13.
On Wall Street, Procter & Gamble rose 2.5% after reporting stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. CEO Shailesh Jejurikar said it saw broad-based growth across regions and products, which include Bounty paper towels and Tide detergent.
Hartford Insurance Group fell 3.7% after reporting profit growth for the latest quarter that fell short of analysts’ expectations.
All told, the S&P 500 rose 56.68 points to 7,165.08. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 79.61 to 49,230.71, and the Nasdaq composite rallied 398.09 to 24,836.60.
In the bond market, Treasury yields eased as traders upped their bets on the possibility that the Federal Reserve could resume its cuts to interest rates later this year.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury dipped to 4.30% from 4.34% late Thursday.
A report in the morning also said sentiment among U.S. consumers remains sour. A survey by the University of Michigan found weaker sentiment in April across political party, income, age, and education, though it improved a bit after the ceasefire in the war with Iran was announced earlier in the month.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed across Europe and Asia. Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 1%, and France’s CAC 40 fell 0.8% for two of the world’s bigger moves.
___
AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Matt Ott contributed to this report.
